Potchefstroom,
\nOpener Mithali Raj held the innings together with an unbeaten half-century as Indian women notched up a comfortable seven-wicket victory over South Africa in the first T20 International here on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Mithali (54) shared two crucial stands\u2014a 69-run partnership for the third wicket with debutant Jemimah Rodrigues (37) and then added 52 runs with Veda Krishnamurthy (37 not out) for the unbroken fourth wicket\u2014as India chased down a target of 165 with seven balls to spare.<\/p>\n
India led the five-match T20 International series 1-0.<\/p>\n
Mithali\u2019s knock, her 11th T20 International half-century, came from 48 deliveries and she hit six fours, one six and carried her bat through the innings. India finished at 168 for three in 18.5 overs.<\/p>\n
The 17-year-old Mumbai player, Rodrigues, also batted impressively, hitting four boundaries and a six during her breezy 27-ball knock.<\/p>\n
After Rodrigues was out in the 14th over, Krishnamurthy did not allow the momentum to slow down, as she hit three boundaries and three sixes in her 22-ball innings.<\/p>\n
The other opener, Smriti Mandhana, contributed 28 while one-down Harmanpreet Kaur was run out for nought in the first ball she faced.<\/p>\n
For South Africa, leg-spinner Dane van Niekerk and left-arm pacer Moseline Daniels, took a wicket apiece.<\/p>\n
Earlier, put into bat, South Africa scored 164 for four in their allotted 20 overs, with Chloe Tryon making a hurricane 32 not out off just seven balls. She struck four sixes and two boundaries in a late batting pyrotechnic.<\/p>\n
Tyron took 23 runs (3 sixes and 1 four) from the final over bowled by a clueless Shikha Pandey. Nadine de Klerk was the other not out batsmen on 23 off 25 deliveries.<\/p>\n
Other notable contributors were opener Dane van Niekerk (38 off 31 balls) and Mignon du Preez (31 off 27 balls).<\/p>\n
A heel injury has forced veteran India pacer Jhulan Goswami to withdraw from the five-match series but the team did not feel her absence till Tyron\u2019s blitz gave the South Africans a competitive total.<\/p>\n
For India, Anuja Patil grabbed two wickets for four runs while Shikha Pandey and Pooja Vastrakar took one apiece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Potchefstroom, Opener Mithali Raj held the innings together with an unbeaten half-century as Indian women notched up a comfortable seven-wicket victory over South Africa in the first T20 International here on Tuesday. Mithali (54) shared two crucial stands\u2014a 69-run partnership for the third wicket with debutant Jemimah Rodrigues (37) and then added 52 runs with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21895,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21896,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21894\/revisions\/21896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}